1. Technical Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates to a cooking apparatus, and more particularly to a microwave cooking apparatus having a device for displaying various cooking menus.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
In an ordinary cooking apparatus such as a microwave oven, various menus, depending upon the nature and quantity of the food to be cooked as well as the cooking conditions, are printed in the vicinity of operating keys on a front panel of the apparatus or on a display drum provided in the apparatus. In addition, the cooking conditions, such as cooking time and cooking temperature, are set in the apparatus by the operator, who selects a cooking program based upon the observed menu. For example, a cooking apparatus employing the present invention may have both the functions of microwave heating and electric heating for grilling or browning. Therefore, the food may be cooked by various heating modes comprising some combination of microwave heating and/or electric heating.
As compact microwave cooking ovens become more versatile with expanded potential for choosing cooking modes and greater numbers of menus for cooking more kinds of foods, a problem arises in displaying the various cooking modes and menus due to the limited display and control panel area. Therefore, the menu display function of the cooking apparatus cannot be accomplished satisfactorily. In order to increase the number of cooking menus capable of being displayed on an oven panel, a display device having many display cards, swingably secured to a peripheral part of a rotary drum (the so-called leaf type display device), has now been developed. However, no apparatus now exists which combines both the display of a menu with the automatic setting of the cooking or heating modes according to the desired combinations of microwave heating, electric heating, cooking time and cooking temperature while the operator observes the menu displayed on the display and control panel thus obviating a heretofore disadvantage of operator difficulty and confusion.
In some prior art cooking devices, magnetic cards or so-called computer cards are prepared containing information regarding cooking conditions, cooking mode, cooking time and cooking temperature for various foods. The desired cooking program may be set by inserting a suitable card in the cooking apparatus. Inserting the card into the cooking apparatus "programs" the heating apparatus to carry out an automatic cooking sequence including, for instance, a preheating step which may use an electric heater, a predetermined microwave heating step and predetermined electric heating step under the control of a programmed processor in the cooking apparatus.
However, with such a device the number of cards increases directly as the number of cooking menus desired. This results in the difficult problem of ordering, selecting and maintaining these cards.
In some recent cooking devices, various sensors and microcomputers are combined for executing various cooking menus automatically. However, with this type of cooking apparatus, the operator of the apparatus is not appraised regarding cooking conditions such as temperature and time. This results in anxiety about the cooking program and menu being executed by the oven.